2 CHICKEN ITZA. 



Consul, who was engaged on a most thorough examination of the ruins at Labna, and 

 also to spend one day at the great ruins of Uxmal. Then followed the usual delay in 

 passing the baggage through the Custom-House, although orders had come from 

 Mexico that all my stores should be entered free of duty ; but delay and waste of time 

 seem to be inevitable as soon as one sets foot on Spanish-American soil. At the end 

 of a month I was heartily tired of Merida, and was delighted to turn my back on it. 

 I was able to travel along the new railroad as far as Cacalch«n and carry with me as 

 much of my baggage as had come to hand. Unluckily this did not include the 

 moulding-paper, which, despite telegrams and letters, was delayed for a month or 

 more in Havana, and at last arrived half destroyed by salt water. 



I was now breaking what was to me completely new ground, none of my old 

 companions who assisted me at Copan and elsewhere were with me, and the attempt 

 to employ a half-caste, as successor to Gorgonio Lopes, proved a complete failure. 



At Izamal I was most hospitably received by Mr. Gaumer, an American doctor, 

 who had long been a collector of natural-history specimens for the ' Biologia.' Here 

 waggons were engaged to convey my baggage to 'Citas, the nearest village to Chichen 

 Itza on the main road to Valladolid, and I myself drove on to Valladolid to present 

 letters to the local authorities and arrange for a supply of labourers. 



The journey was made in a volan coche, which is the only kind of conveyance used 

 in the country. It is a two-wheeled covered cart, without springs, and with the body 

 suspended on leather straps ; a mattress is placed on the bottom for the traveller to 

 lie on, but this does not afford much protection against the heavy jolting over the very 

 rough roads. 



On my return to 'Citas I engaged horses and men to carry the baggage, and leaving 

 the main road travelled about twelve miles through the woods to the small village of 

 Piste, two miles distant from the ruins of Chichen. 



This village was totally abandoned after the Indian raid in 1847, and is only now 

 becoming repopulated ; before the raid it must have contained over thirty houses and 

 a fair-sized church. 



I arrived at Piste on the 6th February, and from that time onwards until the 2nd 

 July, with the exception of about a fortnight spent in visits to Valladolid and Izamal 

 trying to arrange for a better supply of labourers, 1 was continuously at work at 

 the ruins. 



Until a very few years ago Yucatan was a most out-of-the-way corner of the world ; 

 it had little commercial intercourse with other countries and was seldom visited by 

 travellers. The Spanish families, most of them large landowners, formed an exclusive 

 aristocracy with complete control over the Indians, who were then, as indeed they are 

 now, in a state of villenage, or, more accurately, " adscripti glebae." Although this 

 condition of villenage is not likely to be in accordance with the laws of the Mexican 

 Republic, it is strictly enforced by local custom, and in Yucatan, as well as in the 



